Have you ever tried to scan a document into editable format? It never really works because the human brain uses a HUGE variety of processes for reading. The simple home computer simply cannot do this as efficiently. The solution always leads us to manually proofread the entire document word by word correcting mistake after mistake.

As the print quality gets worse, so does the translation. According to one site, this text:

was translated as this:

‘ letz-1- rrk fit: 1′ . on its to Vc ,rt, cann into tlm yc H_ tcr,la, .n. ‘l l; , arc ti:( h of thc 1″,ats that to ltc rc: ,;. , I; ., l: rel!;n. tani., , ./olio, IJuteilu, . 1!’i./_ ;lr”n. Iiam! Jr.r. F’l,nr_.Z.._%i;;, ,, : rt-Irn: am/ tf.rri.:, t?m steamer as a tr nW r. Uu ,tin;t, c ac?1 1″,at firm/ a t;nn, accor.liu; to .t rn. ‘Cl.w r. wu ru lm:nui MistinW /y in u;th, -. ink ;:,k as to “what w ax 1111, :111(I vle:iR a of ;: (,am( into, mnr r-, tm if tlm wo r( uu.i n:’ of t?u : la?:Iv. ‘c : ol in thc , ucr:atic , , Tlau :; will h:aw tu-li.r . ‘1′Im yap?tts Il ,,n an,/ I, ,rr:l. r, (,t tf,is r:ity, start witli it, with lu:rtic: ol 1- e:l.k.

A group of geeks at Carnegie Mellon University got together and discovered that in order to translate billions of virtually illegible words, we need humanpower…. and lots of it!

Have you ever seen these? Two words under the brand ‘ReCaptcha’ (single word anti-spam systems don’t do this)

These two words come from the clever people above to prove you are a human by translating the words…. however there’s something they’re not telling you…

Only one of the words is actually known and tested!

One of the words it knows and proves you are human (as we’ve already established, computers are terrible at reading), the other is completely unknown… when you enter that word, assuming the other was correct, it will be assigned to the image helping the recaptcha machine translate an entire book. YOU have become a slave to the system, one part of the mass humanpower needed to run ‘the machine’

I find this amazingly simple concept is just brilliant… pure genius at it’s best. If everyone puts in a tiny amount of effort, the big picture will form much more quickly than our forefathers could have ever imagined. Proof of the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of our parts.

Now I just need to work out how many of these flipping things I’ve filled out so I can write out an invoice…

As the self-assessment deadline draws closer, thousands of business are being hit with an email, supposedly from the tax office claiming they are owed a rebate. HMRC describe it as ”the most sophisticated and prolific scam” they’ve had to deal with and would like to remind people that HMRC will only ever offer rebates by post.

HMRC are receiving around 500 of these emails forwarded by customers. Taxpayers are being asked either to leave their bank details or to call a premium rate number which will charge them around £6 per minute as they hold for a reply.

From HMRC: “We only ever contact customers who are due a refund in writing by post,” said a spokesman for HMRC. “We never use emails, telephone calls or external companies in these circumstances, and it is very important that anyone receiving it does not reply or provide any personal details whatsoever.”

Did you know that everything you do on your computer is recorded, even when not online. Documents are saved, credit card information is recorded, passwords are encrypted but still noted. Normally this isn’t a problem and is a vital peice of the computer’s functioning.

When you come to sell the computer however, issues can arise. Deleting files isn’t enough, even some harddrive wipe software doesn’t quite do the job, and a good expert can gain access to your information despite the wipe. As you surf social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace, banking sites, registration forms, online tax returns etc. the hard disk records all aspects of you and your life giving a hacker enough information to open bank accounts and get loans in your name. They can obtain credit leaving you to pick up the peices. You really don’t expect them to pay the money back do you?

Scary stuff? Well you don’t have to be worried because there is an easy, ultra-secure way to solve the problem. All the information whether on a PC or laptop is stored in a removable box. For someone who knows what they’re doing, 10 minutes is enough time to open the PC or laptop, remove the drive and replace it with a brand new, blank disk. These can cost as little as £40 so is well worth the investment, cheaper than a lot of disk wipe software and ultimately gives complete peice of mind.

Destroying data on the removed drive should be done with care. Safety goggles should be used as smashing it with a hammer is the best way to ensure the hard disk data is gone forever. In the casing is a vacuum sealed cavity containing metal disks, these store data magnetically so make sure these are in as many pieces as possible. They shatter easily so once you’re through the protective layer, they go without much of a problem. Just make sure you’ve pulled out the right part from the PC.

Rather than destroy it, if it’s not a laptop, you can sometimes install the hard drive into your new computer giving you access to all the files you had before on a second drive. This isn’t always recommended as relying on older hard drives isn’t usually a good idea.

If you’re based in Watford, Hertfordshire and surrounding areas and are not happy with doing this yourself. Give Simon a call at Zako Media on 0208 123 6609 and we’ll be happy to pop round with a new drive and kill your old one on site for a small fee. We can also reinstall Windows providing you have the original disks for a little extra but the choices are yours.

Don’t get caught out, information is far too easy to get hold of, and impossible to get back, so make sure you’re secure. Destroy your hard disk before sale.

Google Chrome Screenshot

Google Chrome is the latest web browser to the market, directly competing with Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer although at the moment it targets Windows systems and isn’t available on Mac.

Interestingly enough, they’ve chosen to use the Webkit engine, this theoretically means that it displays web pages more like Safari than Firefox. (Internet Explorer has it’s own rules and therefore the rendering engine is unavailable for non IE uses.

As the rumours spread, I didn’t have much hope for Google’s own browser despite it being a logical step for the company. Google’s online applications have tended to be fairly bland and uncustomisable. The flipside of this meant that they were reliable and did their job incredibly well.

Since trying out the first addition of Google Chrome however, I’ve found a few interesting things:

• Despite using the Safari engine, Webkit, it doesn’t suffer from the same incompatibilities.
• The name ‘chrome’ always makes me think of Firefox… this word crops up in the background every so often so I was suprised that they chose the Safari route over the more popular Firefox.
• Far from being too simple, it’s very powerful and unsurprisingly, does the job very well.
• Google Chrome launches much faster in windows than Internet Explorer, Safari and Firefox due to it’s multi threading.
• Google Chrome also loads pages much fast than it’s rivals, again due to a deeper multi-thread system unavailable in it’s key rivals. (meaning elements on a page aren’t reliant on other parts to finish before they start.
• Google Chrome does not feature themes, colourschemes or plugins as yet although does work with the Windows Vista’s Aero and Glass quite nicely.
• Tab Grouping – Google Chrome now groups tabs. If you have Ecademy opened in Tab position 1, Facebook in 2 and Gmail in 3, then choose to open an Ecademy (1) page in a new tab, Google Chrome will open the new tab next to tab 1 instead of the far end. This means that all Ecademy tabs will be grouped, as will facebook and gmail. IMHO, a great feature!
• The browser is open source… this means developers can access the code and create their own variations (providing they’re non-commercial) this is one of the only main Google applications that has taken this route.
• Because Google Chrome has based itself on the Webkit engine, my job as a web developer isn’t interrupted (for the first time on any browser launch!)
• Google Chrome’s tabs are separate processes. This means that if it can’t handle some code or the code would normally crash the browser, Google Chrome is able to separate that tab and only lose that one rather than the entire browser!
• The built in spell checker is as good as IE or Firefox, however doesn’t kick in in certain situations (for example a wordpress blog.
• Posting data seems a little slow. Uploading an image to a blog took aroun 120 seconds, to then use wordpress to move the image from uploaded into the text area seemed to take an age too. I assume at this stage that it’s a minor bug to be fixed in due course… watch this space!
• Then new ‘Incognito’ mode allows for sessions to be ignored from the browser history. This offers no protection against hacking or web session storage, but if you’re browsing for gifts for a loved one, or anything else you don’t want your family to find… this option is for you. Enable Incognito mode by clicking the page icon on the top right and ‘new incognito window’ for a new window. Any saved bookmarks, downloaded files and sessions will work as normal but the browser history will be ignore when searched from the browser.
• Text zoom has gone back to the old font size change as before. IE revelutionised accessibility by zooming in on the entire page, images, text and all. Firefox soon followed but Google Chrome has ignored. Prior to this, only the actual text size increased often destroying expensive designs and carefully positioned layouts. Normally not a problem but if you’re target audience could be hard of sight, something to bare in mind when looking into a new or assessing your old web design.
• All the major keyboard shortcuts are followed, control-f finds within the page, F6 jumps to the address bar, F5 refreshes, control-t opens a new tab, I just wish they had my developer plugin with control-shift-y for CSS options etc I soreles miss from firefox!

Do we need a code of conduct for writing blogs?

According to DLA Piper, only 5% of Internet users know the legal rights and wrongs of posting online. It also found that 77% of bloggers were unaware of the law surrounding publication and journalism.

The same study found that 42% of Internet users believe that bloggers should be made to follow the same legal standards as journalists. 46% like the idea of a voluntary code of conduct. Bloggers however, don’t agree, only 32% support the idea with 34% directly opposed.

According to a spokesman from DLA Piper, there is potential for bloggers to end up in court. Beyond defamation and employment law, there are plenty of other issues which bloggers could trip up on. Issues such as, but not limited to: Libel, Contempt of court, the Telecommunications act, Protection from harassment act, even the anti-terrorist legislation.

Given that nobody reads website Terms and Conditions (and many still do not have them!) wouldn’t a code of conduct be pointless? Essentially, a code of conduct is not a set of laws, followers of this conduct will however protect themselves against some potential legal surprises if UK companies and individuals do decide to clamp down. A court may even look more favourably on them for following the voluntary code if the matter does reach a court.

Who would sign up for a voluntary code of conduct? Would it be those who are already careful in what they publish? or would it be the trouble makers inspiring this discussion in the first place?